Red Moon Rising by K. A. Holt

Rae Darling is part of a space farming family.  Her mother is dead.  Her father is religious to his own gods, and she's told angels bring them water.  She works hard, loves her family and  she protects her little sister.  If she wasn't quite so protective, things might have turned out differently.

Margaret K. McElderry Books and Edelweiss gave me the opportunity to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published January 23rd.  

There's enmity between the humans and the aliens.  There are also two sides to the story.  The humans call them cheese but they don't look like cheese.

When Rae's papa goes up to talk to a cheese and leaves she and her sister behind to wait, it looks like the dactyl the cheese was riding is attacking her father.  She goes to the rescue, kills the dactyl and hits the cheese and her father is mad at her!  Why?  She was rescuing him.  He should have mentioned that he was friends with this cheese and they were trying to work together for peace.  Now it's too late...

Rae ends up paying for her transgressions in the worst possible way.  She and her sister are captured by the cheesers.  She expects death and time in their camp is hard while she learns their ways, but it's not what she's been told.  She finds that the humans are more of a problem than previously mentioned.  She also begins to adjust to life in this camp with the family that claimed her.  But her worries are far from over.

This is a full-bodied story with an excellent plot and it would make a great movie.  It's also science fiction for middle graders but I truly enjoyed this read.  The cheese are just different, have different gods and beliefs, and there should be peace between the groups.  We can't even solve that here on earth, who believes they can do it on another planet?  I do.